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The group itself was led by Reverend Jesse Cook,
who was the pastor assigned at the time and
was also the youth director of the NWACP.
The one sit-in that I can tell you about,
if you'd like to hear about it is
we went to what was called McClellan's.
It was the five-and-dime store.
Had a little lunch counter the best thing in that
was the BLT but up until that point,
Blacks had to order their stuff standing up,
take it, and go.
We decided that we were going to sit in.
Everybody else in the NWACP
youth group at the time was older than
me so it was okay for them to go. I tagged along.
Reverend Cook saw me tagging
behind them because he sent me home and said,
come on before you get in trouble so that's
how I ended up being in that particular sit-in.
>> How old were you?
>> Not old enough to have been going.
I think I was like 11 or 12
but my mother always believed that since I acted old,
I needed to be around older people,
maybe it would make me act better.
It didn't, but she thought it was. That was her hope.
When we got there, we all sat
down quietly and went to order.
And the lady informed us we don't serve niggers.
Well, we looked around because we didn't see any niggers.
So we were like,
okay, and we ordered again.
And well, this,
she said it louder so that it drew a crowd.
Now one thing you do need to understand about Marietta,
even in the worst of times,
it was better than some others because there have been
no truly segregated neighborhoods.
Everybody live next to each other.
Yeah, they all had to pass.
I know the Black kids had to
pass other schools to come to Lemon Street,
but we live next to each other.
We looked out for each other.
So some of the problems that
other communities had, we didn't have.
There was, of course,
duoracial tension, but not to the extreme.
At any rate, when she said that,
that drew a crowd.
We had a little pushing,
little shoving, a lot of name-calling, but nothing.
Somebody got the bright idea to call the Chief of Police.
If I'm not mistaken, Bill Hudson
was the City Chief of Police at the time.
He walked over because the courthouse
was right there on the square and he walked
over and very respectful went up to Reven Cook and said,
Pastor, is there a problem?
You see, we just want to eat.
And he looked at the lady he says is that a problem?
She said I don't serve niggers.
He says I don't see any. She said,
well, I'm not serving the colors.
He said, okay. He said Pastor you have money?
He said, yeah, we have money.
She said it again. Finally, she
said, the grill is closed.
He said, they've cleaned the grill.
And he made her clean the entire grill,
like it was the end of the day,
cash out the cash draw,
do everything, turn the little cash draw upside.
He said, okay, pastor,
the grill is closed.
He said, if you will,
I'm going to ask you all to
leave because if you stay now,
you're trespassing and Pastor
said, okay, but we'll be back.
He said, that's fine, but the grill won't be open today.
Then he turned around and looked at her and said,
the grill will not be open today.
If it's closed, it's closed,
and he made them keep it closed,
which I thought was great.
And when everybody else got to leave,
he asked me, he said,
is head at the library,
she at home and I was I don't know
because I was chip on my shoulder,
and he said, okay,
so he called the house, told my mom what had happened.
Mom asked if she needed to come get me.
He said, no, I was in the home,
and he stood there and watched
me walk down Church Street.
Every time I try to cut back over
where everybody else was, he got go home.
And I'm thinking, everybody else gets
at least some kind of arrested
or at least let out on your own recognition. Not me.
Go home to your mom. When I got home,
my mother looked at me and said,
did you have any money if they had served?
I was like, no, she said, don't do that again.
She said, If you're going to go make sure you have money.
I was like, well, they didn't want me to go.
She said you should have been there.
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